App in the Air, improving the global traveler experience, one app at a time

Flying is one of those experiences that can be at the same time exciting in a positive way, particularly if you are an aviation enthusiast, but at the same time exhausting and exasperating because of all the procedures involved (getting to and from the airport, waiting times, delays, etc.). The availability of connected mobile devices, and particularly tablets, has done done a lot to alleviate and improve the air traveler experience either on land or on board.

It is reviewing this type of apps and sites that from time to time I come across a true gem, this is the case of my latest discovery during my stay in Moscow:

App in the Air, an application (for now available on iPhone) that aims to make the most of your flight experience.

In short: App in the Air provides you a tool kit to manage your plane trips, you can  track your flight status (check-in, boarding, gate/terminal information, delays), get tips about the airports you are flying through (where to eat, how to connect to Wi-Fi, etc.) and chat with other passengers (to share taxi from airport or find out whether security line is long and you should arrive at the airport in advance) and, in line with the "quantified-self" trend lets you keep organized records of all your flying activity.

Of course you can get this type of information through other apps and sites, but what I think makes App in the Air stand out is the nice and functional way in which all these practical features have been combined. Plus in addition to an elegant interface it has some nice details, such as notifications when there is just a certain amount of time left before check in or boarding.

I played with the app for a little while and as I liked what I saw I took advantage of the fact that I was in Moscow to meet with Bayram Annakov, of the team that developed it. What follows is a short interview with him:

Q: How did App in the Air start? What's been your story so far?

Bayram: It all started with a geo-location chat Squeek which we developed in 2011. After we launched it we've found out that our primary user base are chatting in airport rooms, so we decided to focus on this particular segment and make an app for them. This is how App in the Air was born. We raised $150K investment from the Russian venture capital fund imi.vc in August 2011 and launched the app in June 2012. 

Q: Who is  behind App in the Air?

B: Currently, we have a team of four: Sergey Pronin, our genius programmer who is coding on different languages and platforms and is responsible for the whole development; Nikita Kosholkin, our business analyst, who spends most of his time analyzing user behaviour, measuring the effectiveness of product changes and proposing new ones, Kirill Zorenkov, our Designer who is all about making the user experience as smooth as possible, and me, Bayram Annakov, responsible for product management and business development, but sometimes coding together with Sergey.

Q: What are your main markets?

B: Business & leisure flight travelers in English-speaking countries who have iPhones are our primary markets, though we plan to expand to new geographies (Asia - 5 times growth for the last 10 years) and to new platforms (Windows Phone and Android).

Q: How's been the market and user reception so far?

B: We have launched the app in June, 2012 - since that time we have 60 000 downloads (January, 2013), we got featured by the media: we are among Business Insider's 100 Greatest Apps and also Gizmodo UK Essential Apps of June to name a few... 

Q: Any anecdotes you might wish to share?

B: Do you know the most popular tip for Chicago Airport? "Don't forget your son Kevin at home. He'll most likely have to fend off burglars on his own." (a reference to the Home Alone movie!). 

Another one is that we had a user who made 90 flights in last four months (almost 1 flight a day!) and helped us find a bug that we hadn't even thought about. We decided to release a special "Limited Edition" version for him with a special badge on app icon to show our gratitude for all his help! :) 

Q: What is your long term vision for your project?

B: We want to be #1 source of official & unofficial information for every traveler to make his/her experience less stressful. We want to achieve it by flight alerts, tips & chat (users can actualy send questions via live chat to the App in the Air team) and by crowd-sourcing flight information from our users in addition to using official sources of flight information. 

We want to be the ultimate App in the Air.. and before the air! :)

Spinning-off

And indeed, the future looks promising, riding the wave of success the App in the Air team is preparing to branch out and develop some of their most popular features into stand-alone apps for all those travelers that don't need a comprehensive travel management tool but are looking to sort out only specific parts of their travel experience...stay tuned because we'll revisit App in the Air in the near future for sure...!

A list of really cool sites for frequent fliers

From time to time I like to share some aviation-related sites or apps I have come across...and, while the jury is still out as to the success of social seating apps that some airlines hve been launching recently, other startups are focusing on sorting other types of problems, such as refining flight search results...

Yes, I know this is hardly new, there are tons of flight searching engines out there, however most search result pages remain incredibly dull...

Hipmunk has devised a very visual flight search results page and has also included the concept of "agony search" to the mix, that means that their algortithms take into account the inconvenience caused by stopovers and total travel time and has wrapped this up in a fresh, visually-appealing interface.

With this system you can get the equivalent of a flight options "visual map" and even hide or display several flight combinations from the same airline. I must say, I have not tested whether the effectiveness of Hipmunk's system when it comes to finding the best prices, I really hope it matches its user-friendliness!

A snapshot of Hipmunk's visual flight search, here showing results for a London to Melbourne flight

Not all flights are equal and often it is the small details that make all the difference, but flight search engines do not provide much in depth information about the sort of amenities you can expect in a flight. This is precisely what Routehappy is aiming to fix. This startup, whose site is currently in beta, gives you flight options based on a rating of passenger experience. It not only integrates reviews from fellow passengers but it also provides information about amenities such as in-flight wi-fi or meals, an information that I am sure many passengers would find useful when comparing between different flight options.

Last but not least, another cool airline-related site that I have discovered and that I am sure many frequent fliers and aviation enthusiasts (I am counting myself in!) will enjoy. The idea of having a flight log where you keep track of all your flying is not exactly new, but what I really liked of Flightdiary is its cool, map-based interface that integrates all sort of statistics about your travel activity. Great design that makes of Flightdiary an extremely user-friendly and enjoyable site.

Remembering the history of airships...and rethinking their future!

Today's post is a bit different from usual, but I think the detour is worth it, as I just came across this website Airships.net, that contains a wealth of information about this early form of air travel: the airship.

 Picture: Wikipedia

I must confess Zeppelins are one area of aviation that I know little about, but reading through this website has arisen my interest... This might not be the last post about this topic I write...not least, because, if these entrepreneurial plans end up becoming a reality, the airships might yet come back!

More ways to follow Allplane

This is kind of a service announcement, but I would like to share with you the new platforms where I am posting airline and aviation-related content.

You will see that the web is getting visual and that it is seems that it is all about social curation now...the great advantage of these platforms is that they are all interconnected, so they are great complements of this blog and allow me to share my content in new ways as well as uncover some great aviation-related content produced by other aviation enthusiasts out there.

If you like what I post on this blog, then I suggest you follow me also on:

Pinterest
A great enjoyable way to share all sort of aviation pictures

Tumblr
A new way to share content, very visual and with a point of randomness

Scoop.it
This platform allows you to share stories and content in a similar way to what Pinterest allows you to do with images

And, of course, Allplane is on Twitter, Facebook and Google+  too!

The American Airlines website design fiasco

Here is a story that I came across that should be compulsory reading, not only for everyone with an interest in airlines and web design, but also at business school courses and MBAs.

To summarize: an American Airlines customer, with an eye for web design and usability, visits AA.com and doesn't like what he sees, he posts his opinion on his blog, and here comes an AA.com webdesigner commenting on this post to let him know that if American Airlines website sucks is not because they have bad designers, but because corporate culture and internal politics and rules do not let them do their best.

The result: the American Airlines worker that posted the comment was fired (I am sure Seth Godin would be appalled to learn that someone that cares so much about his work got this sort of treatment from his employer), the story went viral on the internet, with the subsequent damage to to AA's corporate image).

At the end, AA.com got a face-lift (although not sure Dustin Curtis is now happy about it, given he had his own ideas about how it should be)

You can read an account of the story here.

Ryanair's cheapest fare? what about being paid to fly?

It is just coincidental, I was not intending to write again about Ryanair's website, but the Irish airline keeps giving me reasons to talk about them...

I just came across what is possible Ryanair's cheapest fare from London to Barcelona (Girona)



In this case looks like a technical issue...but will the day arrive when Ryanair is going to pay us to fly with them? the idea might not be that out of place as it seems, since it was Michael O'Leary himself that more than once has hinted that future business models for airlines might involve giving more seats for freee and destinations paying to get traffic. Although this is not that far off what some local authorities are doing, recent statements from Ryanair's chief point towards the opposite direction. But...never say never, specially when you are talking about Ryanair's pricing policy!

Finnair rethinking quality

A few days ago I was checking options for my upcoming trip to Russia and I ended up at Finnair’s website. The first thing that caught my attention is the Twitterish interface that Finnair has come up with.


The central part of the screen has actually been taken over by the "Quality Hunters". This is an initiative Finnair has come up with to highlight its commitment to quality. The “quality hunters” are actually independent professionals from all over the World that have been tasked with traveling the globe during a whole month reporting on their experiences on quality wherever they go, be it the flights, airports or destinations.

The innovation is not that these "quality hunters" will be blogging and communicating their experiences along the way, engaging in open dialog with the public and making extensive use of twitter, but that Finair is giving them the main section of their corporate website. Some of the posts have little to do with the airline itself, but when they do write about Finnair I like the fact that they are sharp and straight to the point, like for example this post by "quality hunter" Christina Lund Sørensen about her less-than-satisfactory eating experience on-board several of Finnair's aircraft. It is a much welcome exercise of transparency on Finnair's side that the bloggers are allowed and even encouraged to post even when they do not have positive things to say.

The quality hunting experience has even its own site, that adds to Finnair's well designed main corporate website and where you can find all sorts of background information about the quality-hunting bloggers and their findings. I would say that overall it is a very good idea, with an even better execution!

The new Allplane Blog is here!

Those of you that were already regular visitors of the Allplane Blog must have noticed the scope of the change. Yes, after some months in the net, operating with a very basic template and configuration that delivered less than optimal upload speeds, the time has come to unveil the new design of the Allplane Blog!

But the change is not merely aesthetic, besides the new functionalities that have also been added and the enhanced connectivity with other blogs and social media platforms, this is just the first step in the project to make of Allplane a much more rounded and comprehensive platform for all those in love with the world of commercial aviation and air travel.

Watch this space!